My children, once I got them out of school were free to learn what they wanted.

I did not keep to the National Curriculum because I don't have to. And can someone please tell me why the **** I would WANT to keep to a system that had caused my daughter, (son too, but for a shorter time because I took him out at 7)...caused my daughter to give on learning and practically want to give up on life.

YOU do not own my children! THEY do not own my children! I do not own my children!

There is absolutely no way on this earth that 'educators' know what is best for my children, because...they do not KNOW my children and want to put them into a class of 30/40 kids to be educated.

Tell me, would you 'allow' a mother to have 30/40 children? No! There'd be an absolute outrage..(and yes, I'm just 'supposing' here, not going on medical facts)..You'd all be saying "It's outrageous! How can ONE woman POSSIBLY look after 40 children at once!" and an investigation would be under way, children taken away from her, etc...etc..etc...

But you are sending your kids in every day to be looked after by one person in charge of dozens of kids...

Why?

Why can some of you not see that school is not compulsory in order for us to be human beings?

Why do some of you want to live your lives in such a regimented way, constantly told by others what is best for you?

I have raised two children, two beautiful children who became deeply disturbed by what was happening around them at 'school', the place where they had to spend the majority of their day...a place they loathed.

Maybe it's because I've lost two 'souls' that I understand how incredibly precious our children are and that no prattish upstart has any 'rights' over my children.

I am no bloody zealot!

My daughter was in the BLOODY SYSTEM for over 10 years, and it almost killed her! It left her curled up in the foetal position, on her bedroom floor, unable to speak!   And when I found out that yet again, it was a bloody teacher, this time one who'd told her beloved art work was 'crap' (the word used)....when I thought of the terrible stress she was already being put under for her GCSEs....and the state it had reduced her to, by a group of people who didn't CARE, a rage was born inside me that will never EVER subside!

I have 'rescued' other kids from the system, who were feeling so similar to my children....quiet, gentle children.

Children are free spirits...They are born free, all of us are, but the Control Freaks have now got such a hold on so many of us, that the majority cannot and will not see that school is a modern day invention, comparitively, that has become a monster out of control!

I abhor the way some regard me, my fellow home educators....

I was backed up 150% by my Education Welfare Officer, who felt that what I was doing was absolutely bloody wonderful, because he saw the kids that the system had damaged beyond repair, kids who didn't want to learn, kids he HAD to give 5 hours a day of 'education' to, when they didn't want to learn, because so much damage had already been done to them.

My brother came from a warm, loving family....and he had much love in his early years. It was school that damaged him, utterly and completely, because he was a severely dyslexic lad, struggling against a tide of so-called 'intelligent' teachers who couldn't see WHO he was.

So many teachers refuse to SEE the child inside, often, these days, because they do not have the time. Shit, they don't even have the time to go back over a maths problem!

The system is complete shit. Those who support it I have no respect for, because they are aiding and abetting the emotional abuse, through stress and humiliation, of many young people! If YOU had to now endure in your adult lives, what many children are STILL having to endure in their lives, you'd be taking legal action, left, right and centre.

Do not tell me how to live my life, because I do not tell you how to live yours. Do not tell me how to educate my children, because I do not tell you how to educate yours.

We spoke to the dear woman who started Education Otherwise...and she was the woman who gave me the courage to take a huge step in my life!
She endured being 'hunted down' by the Authorities, when she removed her child from school, her daughter, who was having severe problems. In those days, it was illegal, so down they swooped! She went into hiding, in Scotland...Her anger grew so deep, because of the way she was hounded by people who wanted her child back in their clutches, despite her being so disturbed by them.

And so, she found the loophole, of a parent being allowed to educate their child 'otherwise' and many children's lives were saved.

Sign up to their site, get their magazine, read the many wonderful stories of success, the many terrible stories of near death, the heartache as people worry themselves inside out, the stress they go through, the anger, the determination...and the help they are all offered by these wonderful people who CARE in a way that schools cannot even start to comprehend.